Northwords Now

Abdi was a man and therefore in
big trouble. Most people in this
affluent part of the world were old
white women, and they did not have male
carers. They had silent, dark eyed Filipino or
Hispanic women, or girls from Fiji who knew
how to cook fish. No one considered hiring
an American woman, and in any case, hardly
any Americans applied for the jobs. The few
that did were suspected of being junkies or
worse.
Abdi sat and sat, thought and thought
about this dilemma of being a poor African
man in Santa Barbara. He was hungry, always.
Of course he wasn’t literally starving – he ate
with his huge extended family every night,
but this didn’t prevent a nauseating hollowness
in his belly the rest of the time. He spent too
much time alone, and he was not allowed to
eat any food from the kitchen till evening. He
slept on the floor of his cousin’s apartment,
wrapped in an old blanket. He couldn’t
complain. The sofa belonged to his niece, no
question, and all the beds were taken. The
house was not a bad place, but it had no space
for him.
How he had arrived in this land of lush
gardens and wasted fruit, was now almost
a blur. His old life was like someone else’s
dream. When he recounted it, it seemed so
unlikely to have happened to himself. So odd,
that that boy had become this man. Had there
really been that massacre, that flight into the
jungle, those white men with red crosses on
their trucks? The facts were these: Abdi was a
58 year old man, and he slept on the floor in
a town of rich dying women.
The mornings were long, and the
afternoons even longer. He sat and he
thought and sometimes he talked out loud,
making plans. Sometimes he phoned home
and argued with his brother.
‘I am not so stupid!’
‘Yes you are,’ said his brother. ‘You should
have stayed home where you belonged.’
‘You are jealous, man!’ Abdi replied. ‘I am
here in the land of honey, while you rot in the
slums in a cardboard house.’
One day, while his only clothes were
hanging to dry, he wrapped himself in a skirt
his niece had left in a heap on the sofa. (She
had four skirts – three for working, and one
for church.) He was a tall man, and now so
thin the skirt wrapped round him three times.
This flattened the man-ness of him, and when
he looked down, it reminded him of a sarong
he used to wear. And then, because it was an
American skirt and not a sarong, he thought
to himself: this must be what it’s like to be a
woman. To be honest, he’d not found a use
for his man-ness for a long time, and didn’t
mourn this. He’d been a husband twice and
that was enough for any man. He felt almost
naked, in a nice way. Did he wish he was a
woman? What was he? There was no sex in
him at all, he decided. Bottom line – he was a
human being who was getting old.
His jeans dried quickly, but his niece was
not due back till evening, so he left the skirt
on. He put on one of her blouses and frowned
at himself in the mirror. The blouse was a
little wrinkled, so he ironed it and put it on
again. Tucked it in this time, but still frowned.
Rummaged in his niece’s suitcase till he
found a yellowed bra and put it on. Stuffed
scrunched-up toilet paper in the cups, then
spent five minutes adjusting his bosom. He
noticed his face was actually quite feminine.
His cheek bones were delicate, and his lips
were soft and full. He ran a hand over his chin.
He’d shaved that morning so it was smooth.
(He only had to shave once a week, so the
first day his face was always smooth.) He
took a faded red scarf that had been hanging
from a hook on the door since his arrival, and
wrapped it round his head. Round and round,
covering his ears, and framing his face in
loops. A dab of lipstick, and the job was done.
By god, he was a woman! The only thing
missing was shoes; he had to wear his old
tennis shoes because his feet were too big for
any of his niece’s shoes. Never mind. People
didn’t look at feet first, did they? He practised
walking like a woman around the apartment.
Small steps, slight wiggle in his butt. He tried
sitting, crossing his legs in various ways. He
couldn’t stop smiling. He hadn’t smiled, not
like this, in a long time.
Later that night, when the apartment was
full of people again and Abdi was in his jeans,
he announced he was leaving tomorrow. He
had a good job up in Oakland, and was going
to make a lot of money. They opened some
beers and toasted him.
‘Good luck man,’ they all said. ‘Come back
when you have a Cadillac and can take us for
a ride to Las Vegas.’
Then they all laughed as if that was funny.
Mr Logan hired Abda to care for his wife,
as a live-in job. He was an old man with a
sense of humour, but not much kindness or
patience. Abda soon learned that Mrs Logan
– Mary Ann – had become a burden to her
husband. She was about the same age, but
couldn’t walk very well, smelled of pee, and
asked the same questions over and over. All
this drove her husband crazy. Abda understood
Abdi was a Man
Short Story by Cynthia Rogerson
✯
right away she had dementia, and gave her the
same answer each time, in the same tone of
voice. But Mr Logan got very angry, as if she
was doing it on purpose.
‘I just told you! I told you three times!
What’s the matter with you?’
Abda encouraged Mr Logan to go out on
his own, and she stayed in with Mary Ann.
Or she would push her wheelchair along the
boardwalk. She found it peaceful because
when Mary Ann wasn’t asking the same
question, she was silent. There was a slackness
to her features and sometimes a child-like
How he had arrived in this
land of lush gardens and
wasted fruit, was now almost
a blur. His old life was like
someone else’s dream. When
he recounted it, it seemed so
unlikely to have happened to
himself.
wonder in her eyes. Every time she saw the
sea, her face would light up and she’d clap
her hands. When they got the end of the
boardwalk, Abda would face her chair inland
for a minute before turning her around, and
she’d clap her hands again at the sight of the
sea. This always made Abda want to kiss her,
but she didn’t.
One night Mr Logan crawled into Abda’s
bed. He was very drunk and naked, and not
capable of much. After the first shock, Abda
simply turned Mr Logan on to his side away
from her, reached over and masturbated him.
It felt just like a kind of chore – and she did
it like she did all chores. Methodically and
competently. Unemotionally. She sensed
exactly how long to go on. Later she held him
while he snored for an hour or so. Then she
nudged him gently and whispered:
‘Back to your own bed now, Mr Logan.’
And he shuffled off good naturedly, his
caved-in buttocks winking at her.
About two months after this began, Mr
Logan woke up feeling strange, and asked
Abda:
‘Am I dying?’
‘I don’t know. Are you ready to die?’ She’d
never seen someone out before and wasn’t
sure how it went.
He thought a few minutes. He looked very
pale, and his breathing was laboured.
‘I’d rather go out for a drink to that new
place by the beach,’ he wheezed, and clutched
his left arm.
‘Ah. Well, you should do that then
instead.’
But Mr Logan died anyway.
After that, life was easier for Abda and Mary
Ann. They settled into a pattern that bordered
on decadence. Their favourite television soaps
and old films. Sound of Music. The Waltons.
Their favourite food, when they wanted it
instead of set meal times. French toast five
days running, with the most expensive butter
and maple syrup. Some days they stayed in
their pyjamas, cuddled up on the sofa, and
snoozed the afternoon away. They had no
visitors. There were two adult children, but
they lived in New York and had not been
back since the funeral. All the household bills
were paid automatically, and money went into
Abda’s account every month. Occasionally
the phone rang and they would look at each
other, startled.
‘Should I answer that?’ Abda would ask,
scratching her head, pretending to consider
it.
Mary Ann would always shrug, and smile a
silly little smile.
‘Nah, I don’t think I’ll bother,’ Abda would
announce, and they would listen to the phone
keep ringing till it stopped. That always made
Mary Ann giggle so hard, tears rolled down
her face. Sometimes, Abda would phone the
house from her cell phone, just to get Mary
Ann to giggle.
Once Abda had a very bad back from
helping Mary Ann on and off the toilet. It
lasted days. She took pain killers and lay flat
on the living room floor and whimpered.
‘Get on the sofa,’ commanded Mary Ann
uncharacteristically.
She made Abda roll on her stomach, and
she massaged her back till Abda thought she’d
gone to heaven.
Now and then Mary Ann shouted out for
Mr Logan, and had to be reminded she was a
widow. She always made a sad face then, but it
was a comical face. As if she was aping sadness.
At any rate, a second later she would look her
placid self again.
Two years passed. Abda gained weight,
but mysteriously her breasts completely
disappeared. Her stomach protruded over her
waistband, and she walked with long strides
to the supermarket in her wraparound skirt.
Mary Ann seemed to shrink, but that was just
because she was so old. She was as healthy
as it was possible to be given her age and
condition, and as happy. After awhile it made
sense for them to sleep in the same bed, and
the space her husband had left in her life no
longer existed.
Abda was still lonely sometimes, of course,
even though Mary Ann loved her. No one
on the surface of the entire earth knew who
Abda was. No one else was like her. Not
really. That made her feel sad and odd and a
little frightened. Then Mary Ann would clap
her hands at the sight of the sea again, and
nothing else would matter but that. No one
else was really like Mary Ann either. Maybe
no one was like anyone else anyway, and this
life was as good as life could be. n
Northwords Now Issue 30, Autumn 2015 19